Scaling enterprise startups evolve through product, sales, and operations phases
Martin Casado · Fireside Chat: Martin Casado, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC) · Mar 19, 2019 · at 36:34
Martin Casado, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explains the operational evolution of enterprise startups at Data Driven NYC.
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“I do believe that companies now go through these stages. The first stage is a product stage. Alright, and like, you don't get out of the product stage until you effectively have an organic motion, or some bottoms up motion, or some brand recognition, and you'll understand that engine. Then you go to a sales phase, right? And then, however you organize them, now you're in the sales phase where you're monetizing that, but you have to do it in a way that you don't erode or cannibalize the organic phase, which is a huge failure mode. You can have these beautiful organic engines, then you create the sales engine, and you, like, kill the golden goose, because either you're not cool anymore, or you outrun it, or you don't invest in it enough. But then the third phase that these companies go into is an operations phase, where you actually do care about things like margins and things that street. Actually cares about.”
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